20 April 2006

The Bosnian Pyramid, Visocica Hill, is the first European pyramid to be discovered and is located in the heart of Bosnia, in the town of Visoko. The pyramid has all the elements: four perfectly shaped slopes pointing toward the cardinal points, a flat top and an entrance complex. There are also the ruins of a Medieval walled town, once the base of a Bosnian king Tvrtko of Kotromanic (1338-1391). Because of its similarities to the Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacan, Mexico, it has been named the “Bosnian Pyramid of the Sun” ('Bosanska Piramida Sunca'). There are also a three smaller pyramids on the site, the Bosnian Pyramid of the Moon ('Bosanska Piramida Mjeseca'), Bosnian Pyramid of Earth, ('Bosanska Piramida Zemlje') and Bosnian Pyramid of the Dragon ( 'Bosanska Piramida Zmaja').

'We have already dug out stone blocks which I believe are covering the pyramid', said Semir (Sam) Osmanagic, a Bosnian American archaeologist who has spent the last 15 years studying the pyramids of Latin America. 'We found a paved entrance plateau and discovered underground tunnels'.....

One way to get your kicks. Don't know why I didn't think of this. I would have saved a fortune at the local strip-joint...

MIAMI (Reuters) - A 76-year-old man claiming to be a doctor went door-to-door in a Florida neighborhood offering free breast exams, and was charged with sexually assaulting two women who accepted the offer, police said on Thursday. One woman became suspicious after the man asked her to remove all her clothes and began conducting a purported genital exam without donning rubber gloves, investigators said. The woman then phoned the Broward County Sheriff's Office and the suspect fled. He was arrested at another woman's apartment in the same Lauderdale Lakes neighborhood on Wednesday, a sheriff's spokesman said. The white-haired suspect, Philip Winikoff, carried a black bag and claimed to be visiting on behalf of a local hospital. "He told the woman that he was in the neighborhood offering free breast exams," sheriff's spokesman Hugh Graf said in a statement. At least two women, both in their 30s, let him into their homes and he fondled and sexually assaulted them, the investigators said. Winikoff was not a doctor, Graf said. He worked as a shuttle driver for an auto dealership.

09 November 2005

Sarkozy said even foreigners with visas would be expelled if convicted Interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy has ordered the expulsion of all foreigners convicted of taking part in the riots that have swept France for 13 nights. He told parliament 120 foreigners had been found guilty of involvement and would be deported without delay. Police said overnight violence had fallen significantly - although trouble still flared in more than 100 towns. The government has declared a state of emergency in Paris and more than 30 other areas to help quell the unrest.

The northern city of Amiens was the first to impose an overnight curfew under the new powers, which came into force at midnight. The western towns of Rouen, Le Havre and Evreux and the French Riviera region have also said they will implement the measures. However the Seine-Saint-Denis region north-east of Paris, where the trouble started almost two weeks ago, said it would not impose a curfew after violence diminished for a third night running.

Mr Sarkozy told MPs that non-French nationals - "not all of whom are here illegally" - had been convicted of taking part in the attacks. "I have asked the prefects to deport them from our national territory without delay, including those who have a residency visa," he said.

26 September 2005

HARRISBURG, Pennsylvania (Reuters) - The lawsuit over whether intelligent design should be taught in schools alongside evolution began in federal court on Monday with defendants' attorneys calling it a scientific theory and opponents saying it was an effort to put God in the classroom. In the first such legal battle, lawyers sparred during opening arguments at Federal District Court in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, over whether the teaching of intelligent design -- an alternative to evolution that involves a God-like creator -- violates the U.S. Constitution. The battle over teaching about man's origins in U.S. schools pits Christian conservatives against educators and scientists in a trial viewed as the biggest test of the issue since the late 1980s. "Intelligent design isn't science. It's old theology," said Eric Rothschild, lawyer for 11 parents who sued the Dover school district of central Pennsylvania over including intelligent design in its ninth-grade biology curriculum.

"It's a clever tactical repackaging of creationism," he said, telling a packed courtroom that the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed teaching creationism in public schools in 1987.

Creationism is the belief that God created the world as told in Genesis. The parents are joined in their cause by the American Civil Liberties Union, America's largest civil liberties group. Pat Gillen, a lawyer for the Dover school district, said intelligent design is anchored in science and is not creationism in disguise. He also rejected the accusation that it was unconstitutional to teach the theory to students.

A Syrian man accused of heading a Spanish al-Qaeda cell and helping to organise the 9/11 attacks has been jailed for 27 years in Madrid. Imad Yarkas was jailed along with 17 other men convicted on charges of aiding al-Qaeda. Two men accused over the 9/11 attacks were cleared of murder in Europe's biggest terror trial. A journalist for Arabic TV network al-Jazeera was also jailed for seven years for collaborating with al-Qaeda. The 17 men convicted were sentenced to between six and 11 years in jail for a range of terrorism offences. Among them was Driss Chebli, accused of helping Yarkas plot the 2001 attacks. He was cleared of murder charges but sentenced to six years for collaborating with a terror group.

04 September 2005

Sig and I went down to the street to head over to Baronne to check out some tenant housing the company owns and make sure the building is still secure. The water down Poydras has receded about one and 1/2 block as you head toward the Dome. Baronne street the water has receded to about 2 blocks down from Poydras as you head to Canal. Still very significant flooding that way and the water is absolutely nasty. The surface is a rust-covered gunk that is difficult to describe; luckily, Sig took some pictures. We saw some signs of looting and there was a car there which had been completely crushed under a wall of bricks which fell down from the 3rd floor of a now-exposed condo. Law enforcement have absolutely lost their minds. Some guy wearing khaki fatigues and black vests which say Police on them have their faces covered in black ski masks and are touting M4-A1s with front hand grips -- like they're some kind of Delta Force operators waiting to hit the tire house. They're guarding the four corners around the Bell South building for crying out loud. And what, they need secret identities? Come on. You can just tell some of these guys have never gotten out before. Now's their big chance to play Army. The police presence is growing and it consists of non-stop driving around the CBD. Dozens and dozens of cars just driving up one street and down the other. We're safe from civil unrest now, that much is certain.

A blog from the City of New Orleans with first hand accounts of what is happening in that suffering city

Only now, a week after Hurricane Katrina roared across the Deep South, leaving a trail of devastation across America's psyche, is the true story of the Battle of New Orleans emerging. As convoys of commandeered school buses and Greyhound coaches transported tens of thousands of refugees out of the submerged city yesterday, in a belated and much-criticised relief operation, each vehicle brought with it new tales of horror.

Those trapped inside the two main shelters, the Superdome and the Convention Centre, paint a picture of a city that was subsumed beneath waves of violence, rape and death and accuse the police and National Guard of standing by, ignoring their pleas for help. The claims are rejected by the federal and state authorities, who instead suggest the looting and lawlessness which followed the extensive flooding of the city was the result of a series of isolated incidents perpetrated by a few. But it is clear from talking to survivors that what happened in New Orleans last week was far more extensive, bloody and terrifying than the authorities have admitted so far.

'We had to wrap dead people in white sheets and throw them outside while the police stood by and did nothing,' said Correll Williams, a 19-year-old meat cutter from the Crowder Road district in the east of the city, who waded two miles through waist-high water to make it to the Convention Centre after hearing on the radio it was being turned into a refuge.

'The police were in boats watching us. They were just laughing at us. Five of them to a boat, not trying to help nobody. Helicopters were riding by just looking at us. They weren't helping. We were pulling people on bits of wood, and the National Guard would come driving by in their empty military trucks.'

(Translated Version)Prime Minister Sócrates asks State President Sampaio accept the resignation of the minister of the Finances

The Prime Minister, today requested that the President of the Republic accept the resignation of the minister of the Finances, Campos e Cunha, for reasons of a personal nature, family and fatigue, according to an official source. This same source also added that the Prime Minister, Jose Sócrates, "at the same time" proposed the nomination of Fernando Teixeira Dos Santos as minister of Finances to the President of the Republic, Jorge Sampaio.

Fernando Teixeira Dos Santos currently presides over the bourse authority(CMVM). He was the secretary of State in the socialist governments of António Guterres and is also a university professor.

Seems like the strain of having to take unpopular measures and a growing divide between the Minister of Finances Campos e Cunha and the Prime Minister Socrates have led to the resignation of the Minister of Finances. Seems like the game of musical chairs hasn't ended yet. How long will we continue to be governed by inept politicians?

18 July 2005

An al-Qaida suspect was freed Monday after the country's high court blocked his extradition to Spain, ruling that a European Union-wide arrest warrant - heralded as a key step in the fight against terrorism - does not yet comply with German law. The ruling comes as European governments are scrambling to enact legislation following the deadly bombings in London. It also deals a blow to the EU's post-Sept. 11 counterterrorism plans and highlights the difficulties Europe faces in rushing through anti-terror laws frowned upon by the courts and at times angrily contested by civil libertarians. The Karlsruhe-based Federal Constitutional Court released Mamoun Darkazanli, who has German and Syrian citizenship, after deciding that Germany's version of the European arrest warrant introduced last August violates the country's constitution and a suspect's basic rights.

Darkazanli is among 41 suspects, including Osama bin Laden, indicted by Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzon, who has been investigating the al-Qaida terror network. He faces up to 12 years in a Spanish prison if convicted of membership in a terrorist organization. Darkazanli, 46, appears in a 1999 wedding video with two of the three Sept. 11, 2001 suicide pilots - Marwan al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah - who lived and studied in Hamburg along with lead hijacker Mohamed Atta. The United States has labeled Darkazanli's Hamburg-based trading company a front for terrorism. He appeared on U.S. suspect lists after Sept. 11, but has denied any links to bin Laden or the attacks. Specifically, the German court said the country's legislature failed to provide a mechanism for appeal when making the EU legislation national law, and also had not gone far enough in considering suspects' fundamental rights.

Head of Iran Chamber of Commerce Industries and Mines (ICCIM) and Advisor to Portuguese Commerce Minister Skopiro explored expansion of industrial and trade ties in Lisbon, according to IRNA. Ali Naghi Khamoushi said that 75% of Iran's trade ties with European nations. "Portugal is absent in this, but today's signing of agreement for a joint Iran-Portugal Trade Council grounds are paved to boost trade exchange." He referred to the suitable geographical location of Iran which has access to the Middle East and Central Asian markets with a population of over 400 mln people. He also called for signing agreements on removing double taxatioan on trade and finance, promotion and support of joint investments and trade, and reducing customs tariffs, as well as cooperation in banking and shipping. The Portuguese official said that Lisbon is keen on exploring new markets for joint investments and trade and supports the proposed joint trade council. He added that Portuguese investors have welcomed closer relations with their Iranian counterparts and are interested in greater presence in Middle East and Central Asia region. The Iranian delegation also visited 'Porto' the second industrialized city in the country and met with several local official industrialists and traders.

Portugal defeated Russia 28-26 in a pulsating climax to the Grand Final of the 2005 FIRA European Sevens in Moscow to retain the trophy they have won for the last three years. Spain won the Plate with a 25-14 win over Germany, whilst Lithuania claimed the Bowl. Portugal topped their group on day one, recording four victories and a 7-7 draw, against Italy. In Pool B, Russia delighted the home fans with five wins out of five, including a 33-7 victory over France. They followed that up on day two by defeating Italy 17-0 in the Cup semi finals, whilst Portugal beat France 22-7

17 July 2005

This is where Amos Ori from Technion, the Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, comes in. He says that according to Einstein's theories, space can be twisted enough to create a local gravity field that looks like a doughnut of some arbitrary size. The gravitational field lines circle around the outside of this doughnut, so that space and time are both tightly curved back on themselves. Crucially, this does away with the need for any hypothetical exotic matter.

Although it is difficult to describe what this would look or be like in real life, Ori says the mathematics reveal that every period of time between when the doughnut was created and the present moment would be somewhere in the vacuum inside the doughnut. All you need to do is work out how to get there.In theory, it should be possible to travel back to any point in time after the time machine was built, reports Ori in Physical Review Letters. One slight snag is that he has not worked out how to generate the gravitational doughnut, although he has some ideas. "It's wild speculation, but you may need to move large masses rapidly in a circular motion," Ori says.

Physicists at Purdue University in Indiana claim to have found new evidence for nuclear fusion in a tabletop device. Yiban Xu and Adam Butt say that firing sound waves into a beaker of deuterated acetone that has been "seeded" with neutrons produces tritium and further neutrons through the process of fusion. Known as "bubble fusion", the phenomenon met with widespread scepticism when it was first reported in 2002. The new results are likely to be just as controversial.

Yiban Xu and Adam ButtSonoluminescence describes the process whereby bubbles in a liquid emit tiny flashes of light when they are forced to expand and collapse by sound waves. Some physicists believe that the pressures and temperatures inside the collapsing bubbles could be high enough to initiate nuclear reactions. If achieved, such fusion could lead to a new clean energy source.

Many hangover sufferers looking for someone or something to blame can now point the finger at their own genes, according to a new study. Mutations in a specific gene inactivate a key enzyme and slow the elimination of acetaldehyde -- the first product of alcohol metabolism -- from the body, say Japanese researchers reporting in the July issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research.

Their study of 326 Japanese female and male workers found that those with a mutated, inactive form of aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH) -- an enzyme that plays an important role in the elimination of alcohol-induced acetaldehyde -- are more susceptible to hangovers and facial flushing when they drink. This mutated form of ALDH is called ALDH2. People with the inactive form of ALDH2 needed to drink "significantly less" than those with active ALDH2 to trigger hangover, study corresponding author Masako Yokoyama, of the Mitsukoshi Health and Welfare Foundation, said in a prepared statement.